The film is pretty good too for the most part - it starts off very well, with Finch interrupting his wife and her lover, him smacking the lover around and taking his kid out of spite. While Elizabeth Sellars plays the wife as a shrew, and it's clear she doesn't care that much for Buster (well she does but more for her lover), her arguments all seem valid - Finch's character is a lousy selfish husband. He does come in for a lot of criticism and is shown to be a real bastard - bailing on his old lover, trying to leave his kid several times, unable to hold down a job, etc. He sort of learns responsibly and the film tries to give a happy ending with the hint of reconciliation with an old flame... but how long does anyone think that will last?
It's surprising how sexually frank this is: Finch's wife is having a long term affair, Finch took the virginity of Rosemary Harris and she had a baby who died, Finch has casual sex with a shop girl (who dreams of escaping her small town life to go to Wagga Wagga). For me the film started to slow down when Finch went to stay with Tessie O'Shea and Sid James - too much forced charm with these two, especially O'Shea (lots of "loveable" jokes about her weight); Sellars comes back for the kid and Finch insists on keeping her... then abandons her; Finch gets beaten up in Sydney with flashing neon lights; we don't see Dana Wilson get run over.
Still, it's very worth seeing and the good outweighs the bad. Some sad moments too such as Niall MacGuiniss mourning his wife and wasting his life, and Finch walking through a country town and rock music can be heard- he's becoming a man out of time already. Some of the support performances are good, including several Aussies living in London - Charles Tingwell (who gives Finch a lift), Lloyd Berrell (who fights him), Ed Devereaux (who gives him another lift) and Frank Leighton (old friend of Harris').
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